"Our prime responsibility is the dissemination of information. We want to get as much information as possible with reference to drugs to the family, through the parents.'' -- Quinton Bean.

For the past eight years, parents searching for some way to prevent their children becoming involved in drugs have been able to turn for information to an organisation that understands their concerns first-hand.

PRIDE, the Parent Resource Institute for Drug Education, is itself made up of parents, keen to make the most up-to-date and helpful anti-drug material available to everyone with children in Bermuda.

PRIDE keeps its 100 or so members, who each pay an annual membership fee of $15, informed about the latest anti-drug resources and information by maintaining contact with its parent organisation, the US-based non-profit PRIDE Inc., holding community meetings and sending representatives to conferences.

"We are a resource centre'', said PRIDE public relations officer Quinton Bean.

"Our prime responsibility is the dissemination of information. We want to get as much information as possible with reference to drugs to the family, through the parents.'' One of the main ways PRIDE gets its message out to both parents and their youngsters is through "lock-ins'', which have thus far been mainly used at primary schools.

During a lock-in, parents and children are invited to come to the school, along with a number of teachers, usually a guidance counsellor, and PRIDE representatives. They eat together, then split up. The young people are gathered in a group, and usually spoken to by representatives of the organisation Youth to Youth, a team of young people committed to remaining drug and alcohol-free and helping others to be the same.

They may see films or slides, be entertained by an inspiring anti-drug talk and take part in a debate appropriate to their age level on the whole issue of drug and alcohol abuse.

At the same time, the parents are taken to another area of the building, where they are spoken to by representatives of various organisations,from Tough Love to the Police narcotics division to the Health Department, with the aim of arming them with the kind of information they need to keep their kids drug-free.

The evening finishes up with the groups rejoining for a final word of thanks for their participation. Just last week, a typical lock-in evening was held at Warwick Secondary School, attended by 110 parents and students.

"It was a nice turnout, but with 450 or so students there we might have hoped for a little better.'' said Mr. Bean.

It meant a great deal to the students to see their parents involved in this kind of event, he added, and being committed to remaining drug-free themselves.

"It is a very big thing to them,'' he said. "I am certain it has an indelible effect.'' Over the past few years, he said, the response to PRIDE's efforts by both parents and students had been "beautiful''.

PRIDE meets at 5.30 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month at the offices of the National Drug Commission offices in Global House, on Church Street East, and Mr. Bean urges all parents to attend. There will be a meeting tonight, and the scheduled speaker is Elliott Primary School principal Beverley Thompson, whose topic is "Teenage Pressures''.

DRUGS SUPPLEMENT DGS